


Forgiveness

by paupotter_4869



Series: The Most Important Thing. . . [26]
Category: The Last of Us (Video Games)
Genre: Angst, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Comfort, F/M, Father-Daughter Relationship, Forgiveness, Grieving, Mourning, Patrols, secrets and lies
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-07
Updated: 2021-01-07
Packaged: 2021-03-18 04:00:04
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,040
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28611723
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/paupotter_4869/pseuds/paupotter_4869
Summary: Despite her promise, Ellie can't find the strength to live in Jackson anymore and leaves with Dina to live on their own. Months later, Joel still has a hard time coping with it all. Alicia offers her advice.
Relationships: Ellie & Joel (The Last of Us), Joel (The Last of Us)/Original Female Character(s)
Series: The Most Important Thing. . . [26]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2033674
Kudos: 13





	Forgiveness

**Author's Note:**

> I do not own anything. All credit to Naughty Dogs.

“We’ll just go up that hill and go back,” Sean instructed. 

The group followed him, navigating slowly across the woods—both to avoid any accidents and to make sure they didn’t miss any Infected or any other threat. Barely speaking, and even when they did, they spoke in whispers, in an attempt of being as inconspicuous as possible. 

Not that talking was a problem for Joel himself, of course. He’d barely said half a dozen words in the past week. Long gone were the breakfasts at the canteen, the working with the other builders to strengthen the guard posts, or the family dinners—not to mention the paired patrols. In one word, he was a mess who didn’t know left from right anymore. 

Although Joel didn’t really need Sean’s directions, what with being a member of the group patrols and leading some of them himself back in the day, the truth was that he’d get lost out there if he were on his own. People were already whispering behind his back that, no matter his previous experience and skills, he now was useless and a liability in the paired patrols, maybe so too in the group patrols. Him being out there _was_ probably a bad idea, but Tommy had insisted. Leaving the house where he spent 24/7, getting some fresh air, would be good for him, he’d said. For now, Joel didn’t appreciate Tommy twisting his arm for any reason whatsoever. 

He didn’t blame his brother. He wouldn’t want to spend any time at all with himself, either. He didn’t like the way he’d kept to himself, the way he kept snapping at everybody, even though people only tried to help and be nice. 

How could he move on if he’d lost Ellie, whose safety and happiness had become the main reason for his existence? Could a parent, any parent, survive the horrible ordeal of losing a child twice in their lives? 

By the corner of his eye, he caught a shadow to his right and spun. His hand instinctively reached for the firearm over his shoulder, in a movement he hadn’t really planned, relieved to see that he hadn’t forgotten everything he’d learned during the past twenty years. However, he relaxed before firing a single bullet, when his brain finally registered what his eyes had seen and could discard the threat. It was only Alicia. 

The woman had split from the group and stopped on the top of the mountain, watching their little town down there. Joel checked over his shoulder—the group wasn’t too far away, they could spare a couple of minutes. He then spurred Goliath to turn right instead of following everybody else, and stopped by Alicia’s side. 

She offered him a warm smile. Goliath, imitating Alicia’s horse, started eating some grass, and Joel backed him up a bit, being too close to the cliff. He caressed his side, feeling his strong muscles, telling the horse there was some time for him to eat. 

For about a minute, Joel didn’t say anything, letting the horses and the surrounding scenery distract him and Alicia. He didn’t know what to say to the woman who hadn’t given up on him despite he’d pushed her away time and time again. 

“Shouldn’t be alone out here,” he said in a whisper. 

“But I’m not alone anymore, am I?” she replied with a warm smile. 

Joel could hardly bring himself to point out he wasn’t a proper companion or partner out there these days. He was so out of focus lately, a baby would be more useful to Alicia, and the group patrol if any threat rose. To be honest, he’d left Jackson only because people couldn’t stand his bad temper any longer, not because he was needed back into rotation. 

“Here,” he said, offering Alicia his canteen. “You heard the man—dehydration is your worst enemy out here, not Infected.” 

“Thanks.” 

“No trouble.” 

“Will you look at that. . .” 

Joel followed Alicia’s gaze towards Jackson, down there. He reckoned he wasn’t seeing the same thing she was—he just couldn’t. Any other day, under very different circumstances, he might have marveled at that little and beautiful town. He would have been in awe to discover that in the middle of the Apocalypse, there were people sane enough to come together and to build a home, reminiscing of times long past, and pick up habits and customs that for all intents and purposes made no sense after a zombie outbreak. 

They could see and hear the rattle of the business day, everyone coming and going to their duties, each person’s individual chores helping the machinery work. Happy, safe, and sound in there behind the walls surrounding the whole town, trusting in people like him and Alicia, whose job was to keep them protected. 

That’s what Alicia saw and what Joel would have prided himself on any other day of the week, six months ago. Right now, it was all wrapped up in a mantle of sadness and nihilism. The town had lost two of its neighbors and, without them, without her, Joel’s whole world had come crashing down. Every time he stepped out of his home, his eyes fell onto Ellie’s former place, where they’d had so many guitar lessons, movie nights, family dinners, fights, laughter. And he was supposed to move on with his life after he’d lost all of that? 

“Max mentioned he wanted to make some chili tonight,” Alicia said, conversationally. 

Despite her best intentions, Joel couldn’t bring himself to stomach any sort of chitchat. Even being out here with Alicia brought Ellie to mind—it was her who insisted on Joel making an effort to spend more time with Alicia, after all, and who’d pushed the woman into joining the group patrols. She argued it was because of him, so they could spend more time together. What difference did it make now? Did it matter, after he’d lost Ellie? 

Every morning he thought it’d get better, that he’d start looking up at long last, and every morning his heart broke and shattered into a million different pieces. She occupied his every thought and now that she was gone, well. . . It felt like a part of him was missing. 

He’d gone back to that dark place he’d lived in for twenty log years after Sarah. Brooding, alienating almost everybody, without making any attachments. Somehow, underserving, surviving week after week, as he waited for Judgement Day. And the worst part of it all was knowing that this time around, he’d brought such misery upon himself. 

He couldn’t know if he’d be in the same position had he come clean to Ellie sooner, and maybe pondering was the last thing he should do, but hope and wonder were two very powerful and heartbreaking forces of the universe they lived in. Would she have understood, had he told her everything sooner? Would she have forgiven him? Would she have stayed in Jackson? 

Which brought him to the worst question of all—had he lost her forever? 

He stopped breathing whenever that question rose, ever since that possibility was sowed in his mind the night Ellie and Dina announced they’d be leaving Jackson. The anguish and the fear were almost unbearable. He didn’t want it to happen, but of course, it wasn’t up to him. Above it all, he understood Ellie’s reasons for being utterly mad at him. 

“Look, I’ll stop beating around the bushes, here,” said Alicia, sour tone. 

“Okay,” chuckled Joel—the first piece of humor he’d heard out of his mouth for weeks on end, however sarcastic it was. 

“I like spending time with you,” she confessed right off the bat, shocking Joel’s system momentarily, “but you’re clearly not in the right mind to spend time with me comfortably. And I understand that, you don’t have to make any excuses or explain anything—I know how devastating loss can be.” 

Words deemed unnecessary, for everyone in Jackson knew about the pain of loss, Joel remained silent, waiting to hear Alicia’s next point of order. 

“However, contrary to everyone else’s case, your loss isn’t permanent, so, let’s fix that first.” 

“Easier said than done,” he said, clicking his tongue. 

“You don’t have to tell me what happened between you and Ellie. But it seems to me that, as long as you’re alive, you’re capable of asking for forgiveness and to forgive. Don’t waste whatever time you have left here on Earth. Go see her. Talk it out.” 

As if expecting Joel to act upon her words immediately, Alicia fell silent for a few seconds. Joel didn’t move—didn’t explain, either, that he and Ellie had done all the necessary talking, without any positive results. It was, as Tommy had said, as Ellie herself had begged him, a matter of time and space. He hoped Ellie didn’t need the rest of her lifetime plucking up the courage and the unbelievable strength to forgive him. 

“Is this thing between you and Ellie truly irreversible?” Alice finally uttered, in a worried whisper, the one question everyone in Jackson wondered. The one question she feared would make it impossible for Joel to move on and for them to have anything beyond an amicable relationship of casual meetings around town. 

“You’d have to ask her,” said Joel. 

“It’s been nine months,” Alicia pointed out, without malice in her voice, and yet her words caused Joel’s heart to skip a beat or two. 

“Maybe she needs nine years,” Joel shrugged, despite the fact that his voice and his behavior lately proved how much he worried, how much he cared about that girl. 

Ellie never said not to visit. It was Dina the one who extended Joel a non-expirable invitation to their place, arranged or unannounced. However, Ellie hadn’t closed the door to Joel visiting them at some point down the line, promising that she’d make an effort whenever he came by. He was holding onto that beacon of hope as if it was the last bullet in the revolver against a horde of Infected. 

If he hadn’t visited for now it was only because he was so scared. She hadn’t forbidden him from visiting _yet,_ but he was terrified that she would throw him out of their place as soon as he came within view. Ellie’s rejection could break him irretrievably—if he wasn’t already. 

Alicia rested her hand on his arm. That small, insignificant gesture shocked him to the core and he looked up at her. It was such a warm, caring, gentle touch, the message clear—she hadn’t given up on him, yet. Why did she bother with him? He’d shown her no kindness the past nine months, even more so, he’d alienated her and barely exchanged a polite conversation with her. Was he deserving of that treatment at all? 

“Listen, I don’t want to sound like a broken record, but the best advice I can give you is, go see them. If you have to make amends, you have to start somewhere. Staying here and sulking all day long isn’t helping anyone. Not you, not Ellie, not everyone else who cares about you.” 

“I know. I apologize.” 

“You don’t have to apologize to me. But maybe that’s a good place to start with Ellie.” 

Joel grunted, dropping his head and shoulders. He’d apologized before, of course—he didn’t consider himself above apologizing—up until Ellie had told him to stop, for he wasn’t helping his case. Still, considering the circumstances, considering how much he’d hurt Ellie with his lies, trying that strategy again seemed like a smart course of action. 

After a minute, he raised his head and looked around. He remembered at that moment where they were, what he and Alicia were supposed to be doing. The rest of the group had disappeared on the other side of the mountain and they were all alone out there. It put him on edge, more so regarding Alicia’s safety than his own. He appreciated the advice Alicia had given him as well as the promise that she hadn’t given up on him just yet, but they shouldn’t have let the main group get so far away. 

“We should head back,” he said, growing anxious.

**Author's Note:**

> As mentioned before, these last few chapters might be a little bit angstier than the majority of the previous ones. . . And bending here the events of the second game, with Dina and Ellie moving to that farm before Abby ever appears.


End file.
